Figma, Inc.: The Unkillable Company
A Study in Surviving Everything
Introduction
On December 18, 2023, the United States Department of Justice announced it would block Adobe Inc.'s proposed $20 billion acquisition of Figma, Inc., the collaborative design platform founded by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace in 2012. The decision marked the end of what would have been the largest acquisition of a private software company in history at the time of announcement, and resulted in Figma receiving a $1 billion termination fee from Adobe.1
For Field, then 31 years old, the blocked acquisition represented not a defeat but a validation. Figma had become so dominant in the design tools market that the federal government itself intervened to preserve competition. Adobe, the $200 billion incumbent that had dominated creative software for three decades, had essentially admitted it could not compete by attempting to simply purchase its rival.
Two years later, as Field sat in his San Francisco office reviewing Figma's Q3 2025 earnings—revenue up 38% year-over-year despite a stock price down 67% from its IPO high—he found himself engaged in an unexpected activity: publicly arguing with a United States Congressman on social media about California tax policy. The exchange, which accumulated over 400,000 views, culminated in Field calling for voters to find "someone else who can represent California's 17th district."2
Discussion Prompt: How does a CEO of a publicly traded company end up arguing tax policy with a Congressman on social media while his stock price craters? And why does none of it seem to matter?
Exhibit A: Timeline of Events
2012: Dylan Field drops out of Brown. Gets $100K from Peter Thiel.
2016: Figma launches. Everyone says "design can't work in a browser."
2021: Figma valued at $10 billion. Adobe notices.
2022: Adobe offers $20 billion. Field says yes.
2023: DOJ says "absolutely not." UK and EU agree. Adobe pays Figma $1 billion breakup fee. For losing.
2023: Adobe quietly discontinues Adobe XD. At night. Hoping no one notices.
2025: Figma IPOs at $36. Hits $143. Crashes to $37. Field is busy arguing with Congress.
Exhibit B: Regulatory Findings
The following findings are excerpted from regulatory filings submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and the European Commission. The regulators reached remarkably similar conclusions, which is unusual given they agree on almost nothing else.
Re: Adobe Inc. ("The company that charges you $60/month to experience font rendering issues")
Finding 1: Adobe's own competing product, Adobe XD, was so unsuccessful that the company attempted to simply purchase the competition rather than improve its offering. This is known in antitrust law as "the lazy monopolist strategy."
Finding 2: The proposed acquisition would have substantially lessened competition in the market for collaborative design software, resulting in:
- Higher prices for designers (as if $60/month for Creative Cloud wasn't enough)
- Reduced innovation (Adobe's specialty since approximately 2013)
- The elimination of the only tool that doesn't require designers to email "final_v3_REAL_final.psd"
Finding 3: Figma achieved $600 million ARR in 2023, growing 40% year-over-year, while Adobe XD was quietly discontinued. The Court notes that discontinuing your own product immediately after failing to acquire your competitor is, legally speaking, "down bad."
Finding 4: 95% of Fortune 500 companies now use Figma. Designers have voted with their cursors.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
Just Fucking Use Figma.
The $1 billion breakup fee shall be used by Figma to continue being better at everything.
So ordered this 18th day of December, 2023.
The acquisition is blocked. Figma walks away with $1 billion.
Adobe returns to Creative Cloud pricing meetings. Figma returns to being goated.
Exhibit 1: Timeline of Failed Predictions
Exhibit 2: Financial Performance
| Metric | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2025 Revenue | $274M | +38% YoY |
| Stock Price (Dec 31, 2025) | $37.37 | -67% from 52-week high |
| 52-Week High | $142.92 | September 2025 |
| 52-Week Low | $18.41 | — |
| Market Capitalization | $18.5B | Below Adobe's 2022 offer |
| Adobe Breakup Fee Received | $1.0B | December 2023 |
| Fortune 500 Penetration | 95% | Estimated |
December 2025: The CEO vs. Congress
On December 27, 2025, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA), who represents California's 17th Congressional District—which includes much of Silicon Valley—posted on X (formerly Twitter) about proposed wealth tax legislation that would tax unrealized capital gains. Khanna quote-tweeted a New York Times article about billionaires threatening to leave California, adding: "I echo what FDR said with sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, 'I will miss them very much.'"
What followed was a public brawl between Silicon Valley's tech elite and their own Congressional representative. Replit CEO Amjad Masad accused Khanna of not understanding the policy he was endorsing. When Khanna claimed it was "1 percent a year for 5 years," Masad corrected him: "It's 5%, not 1%. How embarrassing you don't know what you're commenting on."
Dylan Field then entered the fray with a detailed thread explaining why such taxation would be particularly harmful to founders of private companies whose wealth exists primarily in illiquid stock. His thread accumulated over 405,000 views and included a quote-tweet of video showing Khanna opposing unrealized capital gains taxes just one year earlier in 2024.
When Congressman Khanna requested to "continue the conversation" via direct message, Field declined publicly: "I'd be happy to talk in public." Field later summarized the exchange: "I assumed good intentions / truth seeking on his side... He replied this morning with a short copy / pasted response that didn't engage with the key points I brought up. Then he asked to move the conversation to DM."
The exchange concluded with Field calling for voters to find "someone else who can represent California's 17th district"—a sitting CEO of a publicly traded company openly calling for a primary challenge against his own Congressional representative.7
Venture capitalists Martin Casado and Garry Tan publicly called for Khanna to be primaried. Field's stock, meanwhile, continued its decline.
Field appeared unconcerned.
Exhibit 3: Comparative Analysis
| Capability | AI Tools | Figma |
|---|---|---|
| Generate pretty images | ✓ | — |
| Design button hover states | — | ✓ |
| Create component libraries | — | ✓ |
| Real-time multiplayer collaboration | — | ✓ |
| Reliably center a div | — | ✓ |
| Export production assets | — | ✓ |
| Generate content that looks like "AI slop" | ✓ | — |
Conclusion: The Unkillable Company
As of January 2026, Figma had survived: skepticism about browser-based design (2016), AI image generation (2022), a $20 billion acquisition attempt (2023), large language model hype (2024), and autonomous AI agent predictions (2025). Its CEO had publicly sparred with a U.S. Congressman while his company's stock declined 67% from its highs, and appeared to consider this an acceptable use of his time.
Revenue continued to grow. The product remained the industry standard. Fortune 500 adoption held at 95%.
The pattern suggested either remarkable resilience or remarkable luck—or perhaps that the predictions were never as informed as they appeared.
Discussion Questions
- Why do technology commentators repeatedly predict the death of established products despite limited evidence?
- What does Adobe's willingness to pay $20 billion—and subsequently $1 billion for failure—reveal about incumbent responses to disruption?
- Is Field's public engagement with political figures a distraction from his responsibilities as CEO, or a legitimate use of his platform?
- How should investors interpret a company with declining stock price but growing revenue?
- At what point, if any, will AI actually disrupt design tools? What would that disruption look like?
- Seriously, why can't GPT-4 center a div?
Teaching Note
This case is best taught with a straight face, as if the events described are not inherently absurd. Students should be encouraged to debate whether Field's behavior represents visionary confidence or dangerous hubris. There is no correct answer, which is rather the point.
Cold Call Strategy: Open by cold calling the tech bro in the Better Half Patagonia vest who "did a stint at a16z" and has strong opinions about "founder mode." Ask him to defend Field's decision to publicly call for a primary challenge against his own Congressman while his stock is down 67%. Watch him squirm. If he mentions "long-term thinking" or "conviction," pivot to the student in finance who will gleefully point out that conviction doesn't show up on a P&L. Let the section tear each other apart. This is the HBS way.
The case also serves as a useful reminder that predictions are easy to make and difficult to be held accountable for. Consider asking students to review their own past predictions about technology trends. Most will decline, which is instructive.
Grading Reminder: Per HBS policy, class participation accounts for 50% of the final grade. Quality of comments matters more than quantity. Students who simply restate the case facts will receive a participation score of "present but not helpful." Students who argue that "AI will definitely kill Figma this time" without evidence will receive a score of "confidently incorrect." Both are preferable to silence, which is ungraded.
Recommended preparation time: 90 minutes, or until the student gives up and just fucking uses Figma.
1 U.S. Department of Justice, Press Release, December 18, 2023.
2 Field, Dylan (@zoink). X/Twitter, December 29, 2025.
3 Various interviews, 2016-2024.
4 Company valuations per Series E funding round, 2021.
5 Adobe, "Adobe XD Updates," June 2023. Announced quietly. Very quietly.
6 Anonymous designer, X/Twitter, 2024.
7 Field, Dylan (@zoink). X/Twitter, December 29, 2025. 404,900 views at time of writing.
Case Recommendation
Just Fucking Use Figma
Class participation is 50% of your grade. You've read the case. You've seen the exhibits. You've watched a CEO call for a primary challenge against his own Congressman while his stock craters. There is only one correct answer.
SUBMIT YOUR ASSIGNMENT →Assignment: Design literally anything. A button. A landing page. A rectangle with rounded corners. We don't care. Just open Figma. Submissions in Sketch will be accepted but judged silently.